Dogs Can Read Facial Expressions
In addition to body language, dogs can also read human facial expressions. Dogs are social animals that need to be able to read the emotions of others. With humans, facial expressions serve as vital cues.
Dogs discriminate between smiling and blank facial expressions.
In a study by Nagasawa (2011), dogs discriminated between smiling and blank human facial expressions. Photographs of human faces were used to test nine pet dogs in two choice discrimination tasks. The first task was to differentiate between the owner's smiling facial expression and blank facial expression by looking at 10 sets of photos that were not previously seen by the dog. The second task was to differentiate between the smiling and blank facial expressions of a stranger of the same gender as the owner. The third task was to differentiate between smiling and blank facial expressions of a stranger that was the opposite gender of the owner.
The dogs selected the owner’s smiling face significantly more often than expected by chance. These results suggest that dogs can learn to discriminate human smiling faces from blank faces just by looking at photographs. This ability may have helped dogs adapt to human society and currently allow them to read facial expressions in order to assess emotions and further understand their surroundings.
The dogs selected the owner’s smiling face significantly more often than expected by chance. These results suggest that dogs can learn to discriminate human smiling faces from blank faces just by looking at photographs. This ability may have helped dogs adapt to human society and currently allow them to read facial expressions in order to assess emotions and further understand their surroundings.